The Orphan.

My first experience with the Orphan came at a time in my life when I was desperate to have a baby. I wanted "my own" kids, and adoption to me meant failure. I was stubborn. I was also at the end of 3 years of trying to conceive. Todd and I sat down with a couple from our church that had adopted a daughter from Korea. We wanted to hear their story because it looked as if adoption would be our next step.

Their story was amazing and truly broke down my stubborn heart to accept that adoption could be everything that a pregnancy and birth could be and even more. I decided then and there that whether or not we ever got pregnant, I wanted to adopt someday.

The next month, I got pregnant. And now, over 15 years later, we have 5 children. I still want to adopt.



In 2007 just 2 short months after our Izaak arrived, I got a call from my husband. He began the conversation with, "How would you like to adopt identical twin girls from Cambodia?" I responded without a pause, "Where do I sign?" Then I realized what he was talking about, an email in my inbox from missionaries in Cambodia that I hadn't read yet. I opened it immediately and read it while he was on the phone. The minute I saw their picture I was smitten, and so was my husband. We have prayed for them from that day to this, 3 years, 5 months, 1 week, 2 days. They are not adoptable. For a while we had hope that they would be adopted by a Canadian couple, but it didn't work out and the doors closed. I tried to quit praying for them, but God has not released me from that yet. But still they remain unadoptable.

It's easy to say you would adopt when the children you want to adopt are unavailable. If these two precious girls were suddenly available to adopt I would be on the next flight to Cambodia to get them. I love them, I long to hold them and be their mommy. My children already consider them sisters, the sisters we long for.

But in the last few years, really since I began to read Linny's blog, A Place Called Simplicity, my heart has longed more and more to go and bring home an orphan from any part of the world and give them a forever family. It doesn't much matter from where, I love being a mommy and there are millions of kids who need a mommy (and a daddy, and a sister, and 4 brothers)!

God help me, I feel like my heart is torn out of my chest, laid bare for those who need a family.

To be continued...

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. James 1:27 (copyright NIV 2010)